Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal presents Mark Barber of Securitas with his Highly Commended certificate

Mark Barber, Academy and qualifications design manager at Securitas UK, has been presented with the prestigious City & Guilds Highly Commended certificate by Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal at the annual Prince Philip Medal Ceremony, which was held at St James Palace on Thursday 8 June.

The Highly Commended certificate was introduced more than 50 years ago by the Institute’s former president, namely His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh, and is specifically designed to honour those individuals who’ve achieved significant personal and professional success since completing their City & Guilds qualifications.

Specifically, the Prince Philip Medal celebrates those who’ve displayed outstanding individual achievement in the areas of science, technology and industrial development, or who’ve ably demonstrated “exceptional proficiency” when it comes to workplace skills.

Every year, three awards are presented: the Prince Philip Medal itself, the Highly Commended certificate and the President’s Award, the latter recognising exceptional teaching.

Barber has been honoured for his “exceptional contribution” to vocational education and training. He began his career as a door supervisor over 20 years ago and realised very early on that high-quality training and assessments were critically important, but also somewhat rare in the security sector. On that basis, Barber harnessed his wealth of knowledge and duly set about transforming security education and training.

Throughout his career, Barber has gathered a broad range of experience and expertise – from planning and managing the protection of a Saudi Arabian Royal Wedding through to designing evacuation and dignitary protection protocols involving Her Majesty The Queen.

Alongside this, Barber has also gained an impressive range of City & Guilds qualifications across the spheres of teaching, management and security and is affiliated with the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health.

Barber joined Securitas back in 2015 with a brief to transform training standards. Thanks to his insight and expertise, Securitas UK now has a purpose-built City & Guilds-accredited Academy in Milton Keynes, providing employees with industry-leading training and development opportunities.

Attainment of formal recognition

Commenting on receiving the Highly Commended certificate, Barber stated: “Working with City & Guilds and Securitas UK, I’ve been given the opportunity to expand the skill sets of many colleagues in the security industry, in turn helping to afford them the formal recognition they deserve. This in itself is hugely rewarding.”

Chris Jones, CEO of the City & Guilds Group, added: “Mark’s dedication to vocational education and training within the security industry is outstanding.”

The City & Guilds Group’s purpose is to help people, organisations and economies develop their skills for growth. Backed by a Royal Charter, the City & Guilds Group has more than 135 years’ experience in making sure that individuals are prepared to contribute to successful businesses and thriving economies. The Group partners with more than 200 companies to develop the skilled workforces required and invests in learning technologies to help people on the road towards extensive education.

The City & Guilds Group is made up of City & Guilds, ILM, Kineo, The Oxford Group, Digitalme, e3Learning and Gen2. Combined, the City & Guilds Group operates in over 100 countries and through 10,000 training centres, in turn delivering qualifications in no less than 26 different industries.

RoSPA President’s Award

Securitas is to be awarded the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) President’s Award for outstanding performance in Health and Safety in the Workplace. The award will be presented at the Hilton Birmingham Metropolitan Hotel on Thursday 13 July.

Securitas UK has won the RoSPA Health and Safety Award for 11 consecutive years now. Winning the President’s Award in 2017 recognises this significant achievement.

Phil Thomas, environmental manager at Securitas UK, recently joined RoSPA’s representatives at its Centenary Royal Garden Party at Buckingham Palace to help celebrate 100 years of accident prevention.

“RoSPA has long been recognised as the leading Health and Safety charity within the UK,” urged Thomas. “The organisation’s awards scheme sets a demanding benchmark to which organisations can aspire. At Securitas, we actively promote safe and secure working environments so we’re enormously proud to win our second President’s Award. This firmly establishes us as a leading force in the security industry for Health and Safety excellence.”

Julia Small, head of awards and events at RoSPA, said: “The RoSPA Awards are the most prestigious in the world when it comes to occupational Health and Safety. Winning a President’s Award demonstrates an organisation’s commitment to maintaining an excellent Health and Safety record. Achieving the standard required is no mean feat.”

About the Author

Brian Sims BA (Hons) Hon FSyI, Editor, Risk UK (Pro-Activ Publications)
Beginning his career in professional journalism at The Builder Group in March 1992, Brian was appointed Editor of Security Management Today in November 2000 having spent eight years in engineering journalism across two titles: Building Services Journal and Light & Lighting.
In 2005, Brian received the BSIA Chairman’s Award for Promoting The Security Industry and, a year later, the Skills for Security Special Award for an Outstanding Contribution to the Security Business Sector.
In 2008, Brian was The Security Institute’s nomination for the Association of Security Consultants’ highly prestigious Imbert Prize and, in 2013, was a nominated finalist for the Institute's George van Schalkwyk Award.
An Honorary Fellow of The Security Institute, Brian serves as a Judge for the BSIA’s Security Personnel of the Year Awards and the Securitas Good Customer Award.
Between 2008 and 2014, Brian pioneered the use of digital media across the security sector, including webinars and Audio Shows. Brian’s actively involved in 50-plus security groups on LinkedIn and hosts the popular Risk UK Twitter site.
Brian is a frequent speaker on the conference circuit. He has organised and chaired conference programmes for both IFSEC International and ASIS International and has been published in the national media.
Brian was appointed Editor of Risk UK at Pro-Activ Publications in July 2014.

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